Spanish views from a small town

This is one of the weekends with the most festas , feiras , concerts, gatherings, and processions of the year. Today is the day of the Assumption of the Virigin Mary, and it has always been duly noted in such a Catholic country as Spain. Even though Mass attendance and the number of Spanish Catholics that are practicing continue plummetting, the celebrations around this day are still going strong.  But there are differences between the religious and the profane, though the two are inextricably intertwined. While the root celebration is the Assumption, (around the 15th of August, at least) it tends to be forgotten. So, a festa is not quite the same as a feira . And a concert might have its roots in a religious rite. Whatever the event, here is some vocabulary. Festas.  That is the word in Galician. In Castilian, it's fiestas . These are the actual religious celebrations. They tend to be parochial affairs to celebrate one of the patron saints (or the only one) of the parish. S...

I don't understand. Why is a barbecue always a good idea on a hot summer's day? Aren't fires supposed to be lit when it's cold, to warm you?  Yet, despite the heat, we made a barbecue this morning on our lareira , the flat stone in a corner of our barn under a wide chimney. Once upon a time, the lareira was inside every house because that's the only way to cook there was. Then, in the 1940's, wood fire cookstoves started to be installed, and now the lareira has been banished to the barn.  Then, we had lunch at our table outside, under the grape arbor behind the house. The shade made lunch agreeable. While we ate, we waited, listening, for the motorized Saint Christopher procession to go by. But, a beep in the distance we at first mistook for a car horn, was, in reality, a rooster with healthy lungs. The procession never materialized. Saint Christopher procession, 2018. I suppose it's been cancelled thanks to the devil virus. Yet, it doesn't s...

This summer is beginning to mirror last summer. After a warmer spring, where in May we had temperatures much above normal, now we're back to two days summer, four days spring. I doubt there will be drought this year, either. That's good, but I do like my summer days.  What's not so good is news on the devil virus. As countries open up, the virus says "yippee!" and starts infecting again. In Spain there are infections in Aragón and the province of Lleida, mostly among fruit pickers and packers. Here, about thirty kilometers away, a man returned from Brazil, and nine have been infected, over a hundred traced, and quite a few in quarantine, waiting and seeing.  The EU still hasn't officially made up its mind, but, when it opens outside borders on Wednesday, people from Russia, Brazil, and the U.S. will probably not be allowed in. Infections there are spiking all over the place. Personally, I think borders between the European countries should have been kept s...

One of the beloved staples of a Galician summer is the festivals in honor of different patron saints in small parishes. Garish lights are strung from one side of the road to the other, sometimes just the bulbs, sometimes forming a design. The open area of the parish is occupied by, generally, two large trailers that open up to form a complete stage. First, one will play, and after a couple of hours, the other. In the evening, usually after ten thirty, the show begins. And that's what it is now, really, a show that looks like a cross between a concert and a television show. The music doesn't seem to matter as much anymore, though one of the travelling bands, the Combo Dominicano, with strictly Latin music, brings the crowds. Another one is the Panorama, though their music is more generic. Over the past years, to avoid sounding like second-rate musicians, these bands have stopped playing English-language pop songs, and concentrated more on Spanish-language popular music. But, a...

Last month was like a month of spring plunked down in summer. Rain would show up out of nowhere, and temperatures, while not very low, were not as nice as they should have been. While other parts of Spain and Europe were sweltering in above-average temperatures, ours, in our little corner, were below-average. As a consequence, festivals were either rained upon or cancelled and re-scheduled. One of the events re-scheduled to yesterday, was a night walk in the woods up a hill. It was called the Andaina Santa Compaña, and was designed to be a fun walk to the top of the hill called the Castro Barbudo, along with a few scares straight out of folklore and Halloween. My daughter convinced me to sign up and go along with her and some cousins of ours. It was eight kilometers, and that wasn't so difficult for me to walk, though it seemed much more because of the terrain, all the people, and the three hours it took. We began at eleven, and when we arrived back it was two in the morning. I...

Boiro is a small town on the southwest coast of the province of A Coruña, facing the estuary of Arousa. There is really nothing to make it stand out . The old section of town is almost non-existant; in reality it has become a slightly sizeable town only in the last thirty or forty years, so most of it is new. It is serviced with a good number of shops and supermarkets, and is the reason I do our grocery shopping there.  It is, however, a hub for local nightlife within a radius of about forty kilometers. Or more. On Saturday nights it explodes with neon, blasts of music, adolescents, and young adults. Add to that the local festival that lasts five nights, and the hub becomes a full-blown mecca. The other evening our daughter went to Santiago to meet up with a friend she made this year at college who had come with her parents on vacation to Santiago. Because of scheduling problems, to spend some time with her, our daughter had to catch the last interurban bus down, at ten thirty. ...

From the month of March to the month of October, with a few scattered dates in the winter months, every parish and town celebrates their patron saint. The first notice of the celebration as you drive through the area is lights hanging over the road, generally spelling out "Boas Festas" (Happy Festival). If the celebration is going on in a more secluded area, there will be lights shaped like an arrow, showing visitors to a lane that will wind among fields and farmhouses to the open area where people gather in the evening. Because a festival is not a festival without music.  Once upon a time, the feast day was celebrated by going to a special Mass, and then dancing to the bagpipes in the afternoon. By the time sunset came darkening the world, the last song would be played, the last dance would be danced, and people would retire to their homes, to rest before the work the next day would bring. Things have changed. Mass is still celebrated, but not all attend. There may be bagp...

Today is a rainy Sunday. Unfortunately. Because today is the celebration of the maritime procession of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Thanks to the rain, it's been cancelled. She isn't the patron saint of Rianxo, who happens to be Santa Columba, but rather a much venerated saint in one of the hermitages in Rianxo. A hermitage is like a little church made in honor of a certain saint, and Mass is only celebrated there on the feast day of that saint. There are thousands scattered through the villages of Galicia. Sometimes you'll be driving and you'll see a little church on a hilltop. That will be a hermitage. Their origin is probably lost in a time when a special spirit was associated with a place. Then the Church came and said that spirit was Saint This or Saint That. Others are not so ancient, like the Virgin of Guadelupe. The image of the Virgin was made by a monk in the monastery in Extremadura where the original image was venerated since, apparently, the fourteenth centur...

Today is the celebration of St. James the Greater, apostle and brother to St. John the Evangelist; patron saint of Spain and the reason for the existence of the city of Santiago de Compostela. We take saints seriously here. It's a holiday in the region of Galicia and our "national" holiday in which we celebrate our region and its history and culture. (Every region has its "national" holiday, generally on the day of a saint special to the region.) Unfortunately for the general public, this year it falls on a Saturday so those who don't work on Saturday have no extra day off this summer.  St. James is attributed with having preached the gospel in Spain and northern Portugal. While he was in Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza) the Virgin Mary apparently appeared to him upon a pillar and told him to go back to Judea. He did and was subsequently martyred. With one stone we have the birth of two legends. One is of the Virgin of the Pillar ( Virgen del Pilar ), venerated i...

I remember when I was a little girl that in the month of August my parents would take me to the Italian festivals in the North End of Boston. There the Italian community celebrated (and still does) the more prominant Italian saints. I remember food stands and stands where you could buy curiosities, like a blue rabbit's foot my mother bought me one year. I also remember the processions carrying the saints. The funny thing is I don't remember the street music, but there must have been. Italians are much like Spaniards when it comes to celebrations. They exalt them with music. Well, every time we came here on summer vacation we would go to a local festival and I would be reminded of the festivals in the North End. In the smaller villages during the afternoon there are pasacalles , where small bands or bagpipers travel to different villages of the parish and play up and down the lanes. With them goes the fogueteiro , the man who lights a rocket firecracker and with its noise aler...